Overwatch: The Old Gods and the New
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: In the countless mythologies conjured, humanity had been made by the hand of gods. Now, having created machines in mankind's image, did that make mankind divine itself? Or were the flaws of mortals inherent in their creations?


**The Old Gods and the New**

When she's joined HSI, she hadn't expected to be assigned to dig sites like Petra. And she hadn't expected this kind of enemy to attack such sites.

In hindsight, she wasn't sure what she'd expected per se. She'd joined Helix Securities International so…congratulations. She could now do security jobs internationally. Granted, most of that had been in Egypt around the Temple of Anubis these days, so maybe it wasn't so "international," but she was in Petra, Jordan now. Still the same part of the world, but at least a different country. And if she had expected something more, if she'd wanted to do something more, then the fact that she _wasn't_ doing something more was entirely her own fault. Or at least, that was what she told herself. Self-loathing wasn't a conducive use of time, but loathing "the other" would be an even greater waste of time, whether "the other" be HSI, Overwatch, or the world. She couldn't change "the other." People had tried. Were still trying, for good or ill. It seemed in her mind that the world only changed in times of cataclysmic upheaval, and even then, thirty years on from the Omnic Crisis, she was left to ask if "the other" was really different.

She couldn't answer that. Technically, she didn't even ask it – not to anyone but herself, because asking such a question while on duty would give her raised eyebrows at best, and a reprimand at worst. The other HSI officers at Petra, they were fine here. They weren't the daughter of Ana Amari. If they'd ever dreamed of joining Overwatch, they'd never told her about it. If, like her, they were using their bandwidth allowance following every scrap of news of the supposedly reborn Overwatch (led by Winston no less), there was no sign of it. All she could do now at this point in time was stand in her Raptora armour, keep watch over the prisoner, and wonder what was taking Tyler so long.

 _God it's hot._

The prisoner wouldn't feel heat, any more than it could cold. And as tempting as it was to believe that the prisoner and those of its kind felt nothing, that technically couldn't be the case. The actions of the prisoner and its followers weren't carried out from a place where emotion didn't exist.

"Is your boss here yet?" the prisoner asked.

She didn't answer. She just stood there, sweating in the sun. Trying to stop her mind from wandering.

"Do you even know?"

She didn't answer.

"Odd that someone like you is put on guard duty when you killed so many of my followers."

She didn't respond.

"Well," the prisoner said. "Doesn't matter. Soon I'll be dead. And when that rotting piece of meat you call a body gives out, so will you."

"Life expectancy is increasing all the time," she murmured. "Might live forever."

"You might," the prisoner admitted. "But let's be honest, that isn't really going to happen is it? You're born mortal. So you'll die mortal."

She didn't respond to that – she regretted responding at all. But damn it was hot, and damn she was thirsty, and damn it was taking Tyler forever to get her, and damn, she'd give anything to do…well, anything.

Even jumping back in shock as another Raptora-clad HSI soldier descended from the sky, landing right in front of her. She let out a yelp, raising her cannon for a moment, dropping it immediately afterwards that yes, this was an HSI officer, and yes, this was Tyler. She knew that even after he took off his helmet.

"Scare you Amari?" he asked.

"No Sir."

"She's lying," the prisoner said.

Tyler kicked the prisoner before taking a sip from his hip flask. "Temple complex is secure," he said. "All hostiles are accounted for."

 _Dead, you mean_ , she reflected. "And the archaeologists?"

"Shaken, but safe, not to mention grateful. If they ever write a book about their work here, I think we've earned dedication rights."

"Dedication rights?"

"Y'know, dedication rights. Where someone says 'for John Doe, who gave me the courage to write,' or some such." Tyler raised an eyebrow. "You know what I'm talking about don't you?"

"Um…sure."

She did, kind of. She just wasn't expecting this to be the line of conversation. Then again, what _was_ she expecting after being assigned to Petra? A cushy job? Another Talon terrorist attack, going after this place in the same way they had Ilios? Well, she was wrong on both counts. What she and the rest of HSI had got was an attack by Null Sector. And what Null Sector had got was its remaining members destroyed, or in the case of the prisoner before them, captured.

"I'm still here," the prisoner said. "I know your minds give out, but I didn't think the rate of decay was that fast."

Tyler kicked him again. And while the prisoner lacked any kind of mouth, Fareeha couldn't help but imagine him smiling.

"Now then," Tyler said. Fareeha watched him take something off his belt – something square, barely larger than a cassette player (a reference that not many people got these days, considering that cassettes had been dead even longer than DVDs). "Let's see what you've got in that head of yours."

"More than you," the prisoner said.

"We'll see, Zero."

Zero – the name of the leader of the Middle East branch of Null Sector. Really the only branch left, actually, since they'd been defeated in the Kings Row Uprising, and utterly crushed in the intervening years. She understood the reference – null was another word for zero, and Null Sector wanted to take human civilization "back to zero," or some such. She had no love for omnics, especially not those who reflected the worst attributes of humanity. And yet, she couldn't help but reflect how… _human_ , Zero seemed. It wasn't just his model (the standard humanoid omnic type that formed the bulk of the world's remaining omnic population), but his mannerisms. He sounded human. Talked like a human. He hated the human race, and yet he (was it even right to call an omnic a "he?") sought to emulate his makers. Maybe to the monster before her it made sense on some level. Or maybe it was complete nonsense, and this was his/its way of getting back at the world. A world that had moved on from the Omnic Crisis, and yet, also hadn't.

She followed the news on Overwatch. That didn't stop her from following the news on Russia as well.

She watched as Tyler removed the back of Zero's head plate – he couldn't do anything, electric bracers were attacked to Zero's arms and legs – the only part of his body that he could move was his head. But it remained still, as Tyler attached some wires into the omnic's head (its CPU, she wondered?) before hitting a button on the device, and rested it on the ground.

"And now we're as good as done," Tyler said. He looked at Fareeha. "You should get a cold one."

She didn't say anything. She just watched as Zero began to twitch. Spasm, his joints twitching. The movements were slower, more…mechanical, she supposed, but it reminded her of a seizure.

"What is that?" she asked

"This?" Tyler knelt down and picked up the device. "Data extractor, or as some boys in RnD call it, a soul-splicer."

"A _what_?"

"Soul-splicer." He smirked. "Y'know, all that BS about omnics having a soul? Well, if they do, it's in their CPU somewhere, and that's where this little baby is plugged into." He kicked Zero, knocking the omnic into the sand. "Hear that rustbucket? You got a soul now. And thanks for that, because we're taking everything from it for processing to see how many more of you are out there."

The diodes on Zero's face flashed. Fareeha could see the emotion there. The rage. Again, the only emotion that Null Sector had ever expressed.

"So, anyway, if you want-"

"I'll stay," she whispered.

"Eh, suit yourself." He took out something else from his belt strap – a candy bar. One with Pachimari on it, because that talking onion was on everything these days.

 _Won't that make you more thirsty?_

Taking a bite, followed by a sip, apparently Tyler could multi-task, while Zero could only spasm. She took a sip from her own flash, draining the canteen, and returned her gaze to the omnic below her.

She couldn't give it too much pity. Not even after Tyler gave it another kick. She didn't know too much about Sam Tyler. Only that he'd been in MI5 before the King's Row Uprising, and for whatever reason, had left MI5 after it, joining HSI. Why he'd switched gears, she didn't know. But she could guess – people joined HSI for all sorts of reasons. It didn't take her long to suss out why if they refused to tell. People like Sam Tyler…they joined for reasons of guilt. Regret. People who'd once had something, lost something, and had tried to fill the void.

"All done."

He yanked the wires from Zero's skull, before picking up the device and re-attaching it to his belt.

"That it?" Fareeha asked.

"Almost. We'll need to trawl through the data, but we'll get what we need."

"You'll…get…nothing."

Zero was talking slowly. It wasn't slowing for breath, it was as if talking at all was taxing its systems.

 _It._

"Think that if you want," Tyler said. "Doesn't matter."

 _It's now an it._

"It matters," Zero said. Its speech patterns normal, its diodes flashing. "Look around you, Tyler. See the ruins. See how your civilization crumbles to dust by your own devices. See what will be your fate across the-"

Tyler pulled out a pistol and shot him in the chest. Fareeha winced – from the shot. From the way Zero crumpled over. From how Zero had become a _he_ again.

"Tyler-"

"Before you die, keep in mind that Null Sector is gone," Tyler whispered. He grabbed the omnic by its neck, and pointed the pistol against its head. "We were here before you. We'll be here after you."

"If not for machines, you'd be worshipping the same idols in that temple." Zero nodded to the ruins. "Athena. Aphrodite. Hera. I know their names, as sure as you do. The manifestation of stories designed to give meaning to apes crawling down from the trees and getting delusions of grandeur."

"Yeah, well, we made you," Tyler whispered. "Guess we're the gods now."

Zero laughed, as no human could. Laughed not even as a robot could. Laughed, before bringing his face right up to Tyler's. Whispered something that was carried on the desert wind – the same wind that carried the whispers of long gone civilizations.

"You're not gods," the omnic whispered. And then, so quiet the wind barely picked it up…

"Gods don't bleed."

Tyler shot him. A single round penetrated the omnic's skull, echoing across the deserts of Jordan, and Zero, the last omnic of Null Sector, collapsed into the dirt. Destroyed. Deactivated. Dead, if a machine could even be said to be alive. Fareeha stood there, watching as the sands already began to cover its body. As if Mother Earth considered the children of its most destructive children a blight, and wanted nothing to do with them.

She still stood there, even as Tyler holstered his pistol. As he unfastened Zero's restraints. As he got to his feet, and murmured, "prisoner was terminated after breaking free of its restraints. Prisoner was terminated through self-defence." He looked at her. "Anything to add?"

She shook her head. She wondered why Tyler was even bothering with a false story – who would even care, really? Not only one less omnic in the world, but one less omnic of Null Sector. And yet-

"Good. Now let's get to getting a cold one and setting the record straight when the people come running."

And yet she remembered the goddesses in the temple. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. Hera, the Mother Goddess, second only to Zeus. The Greek gods were as dead as the Egyptian ones, and yet she wondered, how much love and wisdom was there left in the world? How much had the children of the gods kept? Cultivated?

Maybe Zero was right.

They weren't gods.

Or at least not the right ones.


End file.
